Emma Sheppard facts for kids
Emma Sheppard (1813–1871) was an English writer and workhouse reformer in Frome, who became widely known for her book Sunshine in the Workhouse and for efforts, both local and national, to improve conditions for inmates.
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Early life
Emma Brown from Bath married George Wood Sheppard (1807-1894), the second son of George Sheppard, in 1834; they had a daughter, Mary Stuart in 1841. They first lived in Berkley House. In 1848, by which time she had had seven children, they moved into Fromefield House with George Sheppard senior, some ten years after the death of his wife, Mary Ann Stuart Byard.
Emma's husband was a pillar of local society: a JP, chair of the Board of Guardians which ran the workhouse as part of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, vice-president of the Frome Literary and Scientific Institution (now the Frome Museum), trustee of Frome charities, supporter of the Frome School of Art (founded by Singer) and of the Church Missionary Society. The Frome Times documented his public life. He addressed Queen Victoria at a levee in 1842. In this milieu, his wife had opportunities to examine the lives of less fortunate members of society.
In 1833, a cottage was built on the corner of Bath and Rodden Roads. This was built as a Dame school on her behest, before their marriage, as a school for the children of domestic servants and estate workers of Fromefield House.
In the Community
Emma became interested in her husband's local endeavours, particularly the workhouse and its inhabitants, making her first visits in 1850. She was initially taken aback by the empty life of the hospital wards and the lack of simple everyday comforts. Quite quickly she adopted the position of a workhouse reformer.
In 1857 Emma wrote a pamphlet anonymously: 'Experiences of a Workhouse Visitor'. This was published by James Nisbet of Berners Street, London (now absorbed by James Clarke and Co Ltd.). The fifteen pages were printed and sold for threepence a copy in Penney's bookshop in Frome. It was that shop and circulating library in 3 Bath Street which was the first premises in Frome to be lit by gas supplied by Edward Cockey in 1831. In the pamphlet she talks of seven years experience within a workhouse of 800 inmates. She advocates small changes to the regime that would enhance the life of the inmates: provision of a cup-and-saucer rather than 'one tin, which looks more fit for my dog to drink its water from'; more solid fuel than the gruel offered; above all, that the inmates be allowed out into the garden every day, and now and then allowed 'outside the walls to see their friends, and thus it is not a prison they are in, but an asylum for their helpless old age.' She mentions Elizabeth Fry and her efforts to ameliorate the Workhouse system.
Sunshine in the Workhouse
Her pamphlet was circulated, going through four editions, and gained so much attention that in 1859 as Mrs George Wood Sheppard, she expanded it into a book, "Sunshine in the Workhouse", running to a second edition in the same year. She noted in her preface that in the year before there were 704,300 people enclosed within 624 'dull and dreary' workhouses across England and Wales; this figure did not include the able-bodied, just the old, infirm, disabled and children.
She noted the extreme cleanliness of existing workhouses, but astutely commented that they were ‘painfully spotless, making one almost shudder to think of daily scouring under the beds and feet of the sick and rheumatic’. She was distressed by 'the monotonous rituals of cleaning.... which both disturb the bedridden inmates and potentially increase their rheumatic pain.'
There she gives examples "she has successfully arranged, by the aid of private assistance, to keep aged persons from the workhouse, and this seems to be a very legitimate mode of applying charity, and a likely means of encouraging persons to exert themselves in maintaining, at least partly, their aged relations. One shilling a week added to the 2s.6d. allowed by the parish is found to be sufficient to keep them at home." She records seven specific examples and 'of several more whom I am enabling, by this added 1s. per week, to live out of the House in their extreme old age'; she would like to see a countrywide system where a small addition to local funds could support the 'aged poor' to live out their days in their own homes, though her sympathy does not extend to 'the habitually drunken and worthless', who should be sent to the Union to die.' She is clearly dissatisfied that 'English Guardians can walk through these dreary wards, and because the inmates are clothed, and fed, and warmed, think they have fulfilled or LORD's parting words, - "Inasmuch as ye did to the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto Me." '
She is aggrieved by the ill treatment meted out in some workhouse schools. One of her correspondents near London found one small girl with 'her back and arms .... covered with great weals and marks of ropes'; in this particular case, the report to the guardians of the workhouse led to the dismissal of the master and his wife. Emma herself is clear that, in spite of rules that forbad the corporal punishment of boys (there is no mention of girls) except with the prior permission of governors, such cruelty must have prevalent. 'What are the joys of these poor children? I say, none - expect an hour's shivering play in a large, cold room in winter, or, in summer, a dried-up playground - not a flower or tree in it, no outlet for busy, roving childish limbs.'
In her efforts to compare her local knowledge with other locations, she visited homes across the UK, from Limerick (where with two of her daughters she visited a penitentiary for 'fallen women') to others in the south of Ireland, and others across Somerset. She was in active correspondence with a range of parties, from Liverpool, Northamptonshire, St Pancras in London and Kingston.
She does not confine herself to her own observations but calls upon Elizabeth Fry, Sydney Smith, Thomas Arnold, Bishop Armstrong and others to support her case for greater humanity towards workhouse inmates. She asks for small changes in the Poor Law to bring this about.
Christmas in the Workhouse
Her own children originally prompted her to provide gifts to the pauper children. The local press recorded many examples of her Christmas visits. In 1866 the Frome Times recorded her and her family bringing 'timely gifts' and 'a bountiful supply of Christmas fare'. In 1867 she asked for contributions from the townspeople for 'new cheap toys, or old broken ones', as 'great joys to enliven the dull workhouse life'. The next year she is described as invalid, but her husband attended with family and many friends, distributing 'tokens of goodwill', along with roast beef and plum-pudding, plus strong beer at 'the usual Christmas dinner'. In 1870 she was so ill that she could not take her normal active role but she wrote to the local newspaper asking 'to spare me a basket of apples or walnuts, or buy me some oranges, buns or"sweeties" for the children'. That Christmas her husband and several of her children 'spent three hours in amusing and comforting the inmates'.
Her Christian message
All of her writing is imbued with the Christian faith, simple but muscular. She had been challenged by a clerical friend to reject the view that "the kind sympathy of a Christian woman's heart is just the soft soap which we require to make our mechanisms work." Her initial forays into the workhouse had been 'done so quietly that only my immediate family friends knew'. In her book 'Sunshine in the Workhouse, she adopts a stronger tone: 'our Great All-Father says to us: "If they brother be waxen poor, and his hand faileth, then thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner, that he may live with thee".' Her message is plain, addressed to any who are responsible for looking after the needy, whether politicians, local and national, or members of the public, who show no sympathy. 'We are not, as a Christian nation, doing our loving duty towards those of our beloved land, who are in the Union Houses for no fault of their own; those who, from having no near or dear ones left to them to shelter their declining years, have no other home.
When visiting, Emma often brought some gifts with her: fabric, toys, household goods, items of food to distribute to whomsoever she met. She talked with inmates, quietly and confidentially, listening to their stories, lending them books like Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom or The Pilgrim's Progress; often she prayed with them or read from the Bible, and encouraged them to sing a hymn together. She tended the dying, careful to show 'the absence of loathing'. The sight of public begging and the likely misuse of such money led her to make an arrangement with the Temperance Hotel in the Market Place to supply twopence of hot drink and bread and butter for a ticket-card issued instead of coins; she reimbursed the costs. Her help is practical, given because of her Christian faith, but always inclusive of those who needed help, whatever their history. She was not on a mission to spread Christianity; her faith was the personal context for her profound humanity. Every one was worthy of care and consideration in her eyes.
Legacy
In 1871 Emma died of a stroke while visiting her brother, a vicar in Wokingham. After a cortege brought her from the railway station, the funeral took place at Holy Trinity Church 'where she had so long worshipped'. 'At the grave the scene was one of striking solemnity .... there were hundreds of mourners - of very class, including even the little ones from the Workhouse'.
In 1882 evidence from her writings were given before a Select Committee of the House of Lords on the law relating to the Protection of Young Girls.
No extant photograph or other form of portrait of Emma or of her husband are known to exist.
A dementia day care centre opened in Rowden House, 2 Vallis Road, Frome in 2013. It is named the Emma Sheppard Centre. It specialises in care for dementia patients and their families, offering a range of stimulating activities, much in sympathy with her original wishes for the daily life and well-being of workhouse inmates.
